


With this Ring

by MrToddWilkins



Series: 1961:A Space Odyssey (and tales from that world) [7]
Category: For Better or For Worse (Comics)
Genre: 2001, Alternate Universe - 9/11 never happened, And That’s Okay, Canada is a republic in this timeline, Canon Compliant, Craft Brewing, Dress shopping, Drunk Texting, Eating out, F/M, Internet, Liz does her thing, Mike posts his stuff to Usenet, Novelization, Photography, Restaurants, Retelling Canon, Sharing a Bed, Summer Camp, Thomas Covenant Reference(s), Wedding, Wedding Planning, Wedding Rings, day camp, elopement, man cave, play-by-post D&D
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:31:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrToddWilkins/pseuds/MrToddWilkins
Summary: It was a big year for new relationships in the Patterson household. Wanting to avoid an elaborate, expensive wedding, Michael and Deanna married in secret and moved in together. Meanwhile, her mother continued to engineer a huge social affair, which threatened to upset an already delicate relationship between the two families. When Elly helped her reluctant daughter-in-law choose a dress, it brought them closer together-as confidantes and friends-and in the end, the wedding was beautiful.Meanwhile, Grandpa Jim began a slow, sweet courtship with Iris, whom he met at the Wednesday night Legion dance, and Elizabeth moved in with her boyfriend, Eric. She soon suspected he was not her knight in shining armor, and Anthony, the boy Elly and John always hoped Elizabeth would marry, became engaged to someone else.





	1. Night Thoughts

“I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you really are”

\- attributed to Terry Pratchett

————

_November 25,2000_

Wilfred Sobinski’s life had been one of hard choices,but it had also had its joyous moments, and times when it was worth living.

He was born on an autumn day in 1941,in a small town in England whence his parents,Tomas and Jozefa Sobinski,had fled after the Nazis had steamrolled their country. Walmington-on-Sea proved a safe place for them. Tomas named his son for his great-great-uncle,who had perished at Inkerman,and found a job as a radar reader at the local airbase. Jozefa worked a succession of stints as a domestic for Walmington’s richer families. It was a hard life,but no harder than many lives in the Europe of those days. They had three hearty meals a day.

When peace came,Tomas moved the family (which now included a sister,Lili,born in January 1945) to Brighton,and later on to Dublin. There he found administrative jobs for the RAF. In 1948,he heard about the possibility of work in Canada,and in May 1950 they crossed the Atlantic on the SS _Oberon.   
_

The family settled in Sarnia,one of the larger towns of its kind. Wilfred’s other sister,Nina,and his brother Szymon entered the world there,in May 1952. Tomas got a job for the town government as a clerk,writing documents in legal cases.

It was when Wilfred went to college,at the then recently established University of Guelph,that he met the love of his life. Mira Rzyvenklau came from a family that had settled in the region at the beginning of the century. She was pretty,cultured,and smart. In just a year,they were engaged.

Their first daughter,Andrea,was born at their Sarnia house in June 1971,but she would have no memory of it,because at the end of the year they moved to a bigger house in the Dundas suburb of Milborough. Wilfred got a job as a clerk like his father,in a hardware store owned by one Antanas Arjzašik,a distant cousin of his. They lived across the street from Antanas and his French wife Maria,and every day Wilf and Antanas would drive the latter’s Ford Fairlane to work. Theirs was a happy life.

In the spring of 1975,Mira got pregnant again. Their second daughter,Deanna,named for Mira’s mother,entered the world six days before Christmas,when the Moon was full and the world enrapt in the adventures of the first international lunar mission.

Deanna proved to be a fussy child from the first. Unlike Andrea’s auburn hair,hers was blond like her father’s. She was also more given to temper tantrums than Andrea. Unlike most girls her age,Dee was more interested in what her father was doing.

In 1988,the family moved again,this time to Toronto. Wilf had gone back to school,law school this time,and was admitted to the City Bar. He took a place with the firm of Smith,Ohlman,Wiesznewski,and Nott,the city’s best known family lawyers. Often he ended up representing some crazy housewife in a divorce case. But even if they were mental,Wilf tried to do fair by them. The job paid well,and Antanas was in a position where he could afford to lend Wilf money when he needed it.  
  
————-

The first bump in the road came at the end of 1993. Like her parents,Andrea had gone to Guelph,this time on an English scholarship (Wilf had seen samples of her writing in high school,and insisted she go to university to perfect her art). In her freshman year,she met Jason Neeley, an impressionable American who was trying to get an art appreciation major. In August 1993,they got engaged.

No sooner had they set a date (the beginning of March 1994,some days before the groom’s birthday) when Mira began micromanaging the whole affair as best she could. She picked her best friend to provide flowers, and she quickly selected a photographer and a videographer as well. She and Deanna,who was the only one in her year to take Grade 13,went dress shopping all the way to Buffalo. It was all too much,Wilf thought.

One night just after the New Year found Wilf working late on the Tyrell vs Brown divorce case. As he was preparing to go home,none other than Andrea and Jason showed up. Naturally,Wilf was surprised.

”What’s wrong,honey? Did he try to take liberties with you?”

”No,Dad”,she sniffed in the privacy of his office. “It was too much,Mom trying to do everything for me. So we went to Karen Bonner,she’s a reverend in Barrie,and....and.....”

Wilf felt a flash of realization. “You eloped.”

”Yes,we did.”

”Congratulations!”, Wilf said as he hugged his surprised daughter and equally surprised son-in-law.   
  
“I thought you’d hate us!”, Andrea said.

”No,no. I like this turn of events.”

But Mira didn’t. Wilf had to hire a hotel room to escape her wrath.

———-

At the end of March 1996,Deanna,who was going out with a man named Perry Saunders,went back home to Milborough to visit a friend. When she was turning onto the Sarnia highway,she misjudged some distances and crashed off of an embankment. She survived,miraculously without major injuries,and she reconnected with Michael Patterson along the way.

Wilf remembered a little of Michael. He had been Dee’s best friend for a couple of years,always giving her flowers or little trinkets. Now he was going to UWO to study journalism. Apparently he had had a couple of girlfriends in the interim:a girl he had met on a camping trip and some little Jewish _haimisheh _from Hamilton.

Michael and Dee started ‘dating’ properly in early 1997. Wilf got letters from Dee about how things were going with them. He took her out to see movies Mira would probably never approve of,baseball games in the Macdonough Sand Pits,photo shoots with his friend Josef Weeder,and all kinds of things in between. Andrea and Jason had had their first kid as well,a boy named Sean. If the emails Andrea sent him were anything to go by,he was a bright,happy youngster with as much youthful curiosity as his aunt.

Then,on New Years Day 1998,another change happened.

———

01/04/98 10:36:40 EST

From: Deanna Sobinski 

To: Wilfred Sobinski, Attorney,Esq,& c

Dad -

You won’t believe what happened over the New Year! Mike and I were at a party hosted by a couple he knows well,and at midnight,while everybody else is toasting the New Year,he gets up on their roof and shouts ( I quote) “IT’S 1998 AND I LOVE DEANNA SOBINSKI!” It was embarrassing,to be honest.

Dee

——

On New Year’s Day 2000,appropriate as it marked the beginning of the century,Michael had asked Deanna to marry him. She had accepted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a conscious decision with the writing of this one to start before Mike and Dee’s elopement. In the books,their elopement occurs near the end of Family Business,the previous book. The timeframe covered by this fic is November 2000 through February 2002. When all of the book novelizations and expansions are done,I will collect them in one longfic,title TBD. I will post the timeframes covered by each novelization in the series notes.


	2. From the files of Joe Weinstein

11/25/00 16:40:24 EST -5

To: Morris and Olivia Saltzman  
From: the office of Joseph Weinstein, Esq.  
Re: property redevelopment/reclamation  
  
Dear Morrie and Lovey,  
  
It was a pleasure speaking with you yesterday. Thank you again for the wonderful nosh. It was a miracle! I haven’t had pie like that since…oy! Lovey, you are wonderful!  
  
Regarding the property we discussed. After doing some follow up, I’ve discovered that the assessment value of the building will only go down if the sizes of the apartments remain unchanged. I understand you need this like a pig in hot mud but - real estate being what it is these days - if you keeping renting out small apartments, you’re “in drerd mein gelt” - just throwing your money away. You are simply going to reach a point where the expenses for the individual units will exceed the income.  
  
Now, I’m no construction maven, but I sincerely recommend knocking out a few walls…maybe some floors. Really widen out that space,if you can. Perhaps some large windows overlooking the town. Doing that could easily get you five to ten times the current value of those apartments.  
  
The schlemiels that are in the process of moving upstairs, y’know, the old married couple – they’re not helping. I understand you’ve offered them a bigger space for the same amount of rent. Not to tell your business…but you're one of the best I know! You need to get these schlumps out as soon as possible!  
  
I believe I’ve met them once before. A couple of goyim kvetchers, if I ever saw them. It doesn’t matter what you do, they’ll never be comfortable. The husband seems a little off his rocker, but decent,but the wife is a bitch of the worst type. You’d do well to avoid a conflict with her. But you need to find a way to get them out.  
  
If you’ve got chutzpah, why not move into their old apartment immediately after they settle in upstairs? At the slightest noise from them , grab a broom and knock on the ceiling. “Stop making that racket! Oy vey!” Eventually, they’ll get the idea and they'll have no choice but to leave.  
  
Not to give you a heart attack over this, but I hate to see you being taken by a couple of people who should know taxes from finances. They should get off their tuchas and find a real house,to raise a family in! I know it’s feh, but these crazy people could use a dose of reality!  
  
Anyway, if you want to schmooze, feel free to call me. I’ll be in the office all week. Gotta go - Shuttle launch the day after tomorrow. Little Ronnie’s experiment is flying onboard.  
  
Mazel Tov,  
Joe


	3. The converse of Elly and Jim

Soundtrack: Cheap Trick - “Surrender”

_  
November 29,2000_

“Elly, would you be realistic for once in your life? The boy wanted to pulverize April because his daddy plays harmonica. Telling her to make friends with the little fucker is a very stupid thing to say."  
  
Hmmmmph. Jim was awfully good at finding fault. Too good, according to Elly. And like a lot of people who were like that, he wasn't that good at admitting his own failings. Take, as a for instance, how he never, ever wanted to admit that he should have put a stop to Marian's constant efforts to undermine her, to make her feel lazy and stupid and foolish. This baffled and angered Elly because he was supposed to look out for her and out of respect of the dead or some such excuse, he just wouldn't admit that he should have been a father first and a husband second. In Elly's opinion, this sort of parental default, this need to back a wife instead of standing up for a child must be why she got along so well with Deanna Sobinski. Like her, Deanna had a domineering, selfish mother who played family politics and a weak, spineless father who only fitfully remembered who wore the trousers in the relationship.  
  
Having Deanna as a daughter-in-law was thus something of a compensation for having to be tied down with a child instead of having a life. It was like having the sister she was supposed to have, a sister who understood how life was supposed to be. Like her, Deanna had had her little adventure before settling down to live a real life with a husband who had the sense to buckle down and work instead of haring off overseas. About the only cloud on Elly's horizon that didn't involve having to deal with children and their headache music related to how long it was taking Elizabeth and April to really grow up. Just because Elizabeth was in college,at Nipissing University where she was studying teaching,didn’t necessarily indicate maturity on her part. Elly knew this from her own experience at UWO in her younger years. Cathy Goodrich’s parties,while fun,hadn’t been any substitute for a real,lasting relationship. Thank the heavens that she’d found John.

———-

Jim stood,stretched,and crossed over to the carafe on which sat his latest latte. “I’m starting something at the Legion in Westdale - a dance class for us old folks. 30s and 40s songs,old popular hits. It’ll get the old blood flowing again.” He lifted up his mug and went back to his seat. “How’s Elizabeth doing?”

”Rather well,Dad”, Elly said with a smile. “She,Candace,and Shawna-Marie are moving into a shared apartment. She’s seeing someone named Eric Chamberlain - I believe he’s a chemistry major.”

”Is it serious?”

”I don’t think so,not yet. You know how Liz is.”

”I still think she shouldn’t have broken up with Anthony”, Jim harrumphed. “I rather liked him.” Anthony Caine was Elizabeth’s former boyfriend,now studying at Western and living in Mike’s old apartment. He and Mike’s old landlady got on quite well from what Elly heard.

”Where are the kids,anyway? I haven’t seen them all day.”

”April and Lia are at Becky’s house and Jamie is hanging out with Mark Creemore. His sister graduated with Michael.”

”Hm. How’s Mike and Deanna?”

”The planning proceeds apace. We’re all still banking on July.”

”I’d heard she wants a quality dress.”

”We haven’t thought about that yet. But we do have a reception venue - the Highcrest Country Club in Oakville. Lawrence did a landscaping job there last year and recommended it to us. It’s got an excellent old-style dining room that’d serve well.”

Jim stood and stretched. “Mike’s one lucky young man,eh? Got the good job,the good house,the good girl....things’ll work out for him. They always do,ever since he was a little ‘un. It’s the Richards brains and the Patterson luck.” He turned on the small kitchen TV.

”.....and the weather in Halton Region is projected to clear up later. In the meantime,here’s Chet Baker with the sports......”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes,I know - it was Liz and Candace who were living together. Just pretend Shawna-Marie transferred to Nippy U in the spring of 2000. She’s studying physiology.


End file.
